Now, since we also understand that there can be no separation where no withdrawing is found, we confess also that we are in duty bound to admonish (1 Thess. 3:15) the one separated, to reconcile himself to the church by true repentance; and if there is in him a willingness to reconcile himself, to make haste with the anointing or _reinstating_, and not to wait with those who have married out of the church, until he or she bring with him, or her, the spouse married out of the church. 2 Cor. 2:8. But if the good admonition should be heedlessly rejected, since the daily intercourse of the ungodly apostates is unedifying, polluting, offensive, and frequently hardens the sinner in his wicked life; we confess that the person separated, or punished with the ban, is to be avoided and shunned, even without the aforesaid admonition, immediately after the separation, in common, free, worldly transactions, as: In eating and drinking, buying and selling, and such like unnecessary matters; yet with this distinction, that it be done with such moderation and discretion that the word of God may everywhere retain its place, and the higher laws and commandments of the Lord, by which the believer is bound to the separated one, be not broken, but that everywhere necessity, word, promise, love, benevolence, mercy, justice, and Christian discretion be observed. 1 Cor. 5:5; 2 Tim. 2:16–18; 2 Thess. 3:14; Tit. 3:10; Luke 6:36; 2 Pet. 1:6. Likewise, if one man understand the passage respecting shunning, in 1 Cor. 5, in a higher, and another man, in a lower sense, both men being godfearing in their life, they should, until further enlightenment, be borne with in love, without contention or disputing. Whosoever seeks, in human weakness, to live according to these, the chief, as well as to other commandments, doctrines, and ordinances of the Lord (more explicitly defined in his holy Word), and thus to accomplish his pilgrimage on this earth, of him we believe that he will not only feel at his departure from earth a sure witness of his conscience, and have a glad hope; but at the resurrection of the dead will indeed find it to be so, that all his sins will be forgiven him through the holy merits and comforting intercession of Christ. Luke 24:47; Col. 1:14; Acts 13:38; 1 Tim. 2:5; 1 John 2:1; Rom. 8:34.